Yankees should have let A-Rod go when they had the chance

Mar. 6, 2009

Written by

Sam Borden

Journal News columnist

There is so much we don't know about Alex Rodriguez's hip injury, so much we won't know until Rodriguez makes it through the year and has surgery or slides into second base one day against the Royals and begins writhing in pain.

Suddenly, the season has become a six-month game of Jenga for Rodriguez and the Yankees: Will one more game be what topples him? One more slide? One more hard turn around third base as he heads for home? No one knows and no one can know. But here is what we do know for sure: The Yankees were out. They were out, free and clear of Rodriguez back in 2007, when Rodriguez decided to opt out of his contract. For about three weeks, Rodriguez wasn't the Yankees' problem anymore. Wasn't their PR concern. Wasn't their responsibility. And then Hank Steinbrenner brought Rodriguez back and gave him a 10-year contract, essentially marrying the Yankees to Rodriguez for the rest of his career.

The way things have gone lately for Rodriguez, you'd have to think the Yankees would probably have preferred Hank spend that $275 million a little differently. Like, say, on vintage turtlenecks and blazers for his dad. Or cigarettes. Or land under the Brooklyn Bridge.

But he didn't. So Rodriguez and his steroid use and poker playing and infidelity and propensity to put his foot in his mouth are the Yankees' problem for the foreseeable future, all of which would have been tolerable enough so long as he continued to be the greatest player in the game.

That was always the catch. The saving grace. The thing that made it all worthwhile. While the Yankees had to deal with a constant stream of activity from Rodriguez that showed him to be particularly amateurish in many facets of basic human existence, they could at least take solace in the fact that he was incredibly professional at playing baseball. He hit, he ran, he scored runs, he played the field, he won MVPs. Whatever else he did, he generally had a positive influence on the team's on-field results.

That isn't necessarily the case anymore. This hip injury not only puts Rodriguez's season - and, at the risk of being overly dramatic, career - in murkier territory, it also locks the Yankees organization into an elaborate holding pattern predicated on whether or not their third baseman will or will not need an operation before next winter.

Before, when the stories about Rodriguez had to do with steroids and Madonna and Derek Jeter vs. Jose Reyes, the concern was whether these issues might be a "distraction" for Rodriguez or his teammates. They were potential sideshows, not real baseball issues.

This is a real baseball issue. The Yankees cannot go out and get a new third baseman right now because what if Rodriguez makes it through? What if he's able to play? Are they going to trade for Chone Figgins and then keep him on the bench? Make a smaller deal? Shift players around? It's difficult to shop for something you don't know you actually need.

That's why they're doing rest and rehab for Rodriguez. Rest and rehab and prayer. Of course, if Rodriguez does aggravate the hip during the season, does need surgery that could keep him out for four months according to GM Brian Cashman, the Yankees know they will then have no leverage in any talks with other teams, meaning they'll have to either overpay or give the third-base job to Cody Ransom, whose biggest accomplishment to date seems to be that someone once filmed him showing off his five-foot vertical leap and then put it on YouTube.

"We are hoping (Rodriguez) can play with it," Cashman told reporters in Florida yesterday. "That's the gray area, that's what we are all trying to figure out. He's such an asset that we want to try this way first."

In truth, the Yankees have no choice. Losing Rodriguez would be debilitating to their lineup, and this season is too important to shut him down right away. The Yankees need this season for their new stadium; Joe Girardi needs this season for his job; Jorge Posada and Mariano Rivera and Johnny Damon need this season because they don't necessarily know how many more chances at a championship season they have left. So they wait. Wait to see if Rodriguez can play a little in spring training. Wait to see if Rodriguez can make it through the first dive for a ball in the hole. Wait to see if Rodriguez can stand up to 162 games with a hip that may feel like it's made of glass.

The best-case scenario is the Yankees go into next season with a 34-year-old third baseman who just had major hip surgery. The worst-case is it all comes tumbling down in April or before.

This isn't another gossipy A-Rod story, isn't another two-day news cycle on how he and Jeter aren't soul mates anymore. This isn't a "potential" problem. It's a problem and one that isn't going away any time soon.

The Yankees were almost free of Rodriguez, almost, nearly on the tippy-tip-tip of getting away from him. Three weeks they got. Three weeks of freedom that somehow turned into 10 years of something else. Normally you'd say the team has control of the player for the length of that contract. With Rodriguez, it somehow feels like it's the other way around.